Chronic poverty in urban Ethiopia: panel data evidence.

Contents

Abstract

In the developing world, little is known about urban chronic poverty
based on quantitative evidence mainly due to lack of data tracking the
same households over time. In this paper, we analyse 3 waves of a unique
and rich panel data set on 1500 households collected through the
Ethiopian Urban Household Surveys from 1994 to 1997. Based on real total
household expenditure per month as our preferred welfare indicator, our
results indicate that there is a high level chronic poverty (25.9 %)
more concentrated in central and northern cities. Households that
experience transitory poverty constitute 23.0% of the total. Both the
descriptive and econometric evidence indicate that chronic poverty has
been associated with household composition, unemployment, lack of asset
ownership, casual employment, lack of education, ethnicity, age and to a
certain extent to female-headedness. Among ethnic groups, the Tigre are
less likely to be chronically as opposed to the Gurage.